The Economy Is Creeping Up, Not the Job Market. Huh?

Even an economy propped up by tax cuts, military spending and other one-time fixes is expanding lately at only a 4 percent annual rate. That is a lot by past standards, but not enough when productivity has been surging at a 4.4 percent annual rate for 18 months.

As a result, the nation's private-sector employers are behaving as if they were caught in a recession, which they very well may be if they continue to act this way. Unable to sell all they can produce, they have reduced by 1.1 percent the total number of hours worked since the start of the recovery in November 2001, and they have put a lid on raises for most of the nation's 108 million jobholders. Wages are rising, but hours are disappearing and the combination leaves weekly pay barely keeping up with inflation, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.